CAREER: Empirical Studies of Electricity Markets: The Impacts of Renewable Energy

职业：电力市场的实证研究：可再生能源的影响

• 批准号: 1455084
• 负责人: Mar Reguant
• 金额: $ 45.78万
• 依托单位: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-06-01 至 2022-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1455084&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Empirical; Studies; Electricity; Markets

Empirical Studies of Electricity Markets: The Impact of Renewable EnergyRenewable power is expected to rise to 25% of gross power generation worldwide in 2018, with a substantial increase in onshore wind generation (IEA, 2013). The share of non-hydro renewable power, mainly wind and solar power, is forecasted to increase to 8% of gross generation in 2018, up from 4% in 2011 and 2% in 2006. One of the reasons for the fast growth in renewable energy is the raising amount of public funds destined to promote cleaner technologies. In the United States, the federal government and many states have adopted several renewable energy policies to promote the development of renewable energy.Recent economic studies argue that wind and solar energy create new challenges (Joskow 2011; Borenstein 2012; Baker et al., 2013). First, renewable energy is "intermittent"; it supplies electricity in a volatile and non-controllable fashion. For example, wind speed, wind direction, cloud cover, and other weather characteristics, affect wind and solar generation. As a result, renewable energy generally cannot provide a stable and continuous amount of electricity to a grid system. Second, it is difficult to exactly predict production from renewable sources in advance, creating substantial uncertainty. Uncertainty in production is particularly problematic in electricity markets because electricity is not a commodity that can be easily stored, and therefore the system operator needs to ensure that demand and supply are balanced at any given time. As the share of renewable energy is growing, intermittency and uncertainty are becoming a concern to regulators and market participants.This research program will develop new theoretical and empirical strategies to assess the impact of renewable energy. The goal is to empirically quantify the impact of renewable energy by analyzing recent relevant experiences in wind and solar integration. Given the practical relevance of this effort, the principal investigator will develop open-access programs to enable other researchers to work with the data.The project consists of three parts. First, the PI will construct a series of new datasets and the use of methods of applied microeconomics to disentangle the effects of renewable energy to the costs of electricity. This will allow the measurement of the ex-post benefits and costs of renewable energy in a context were renewable penetration is very large. These measurements can be an important complement to simulation studies, which are typically performed ex-ante. For example, this study can help identify in which dimensions simulation models work, and in which dimensions they could be improved.Second, the PI will incorporate these data into a series of research projects to test and evaluate the performance of electricity markets at integrating renewable energy. In particular, the PI proposes to develop a theoretical and empirical framework that will allow us to understand how to better integrate renewable energy in a market-based environment. These frameworks will rely on game-theoretic models of competition, and will contribute to the literature in empirical industrial organization. The project will emphasize the interaction of renewable producers with pre-existing distortions in the market, such as market power or information externalities. These effects have been typically overlooked in the literature, which is often based on centralized planning models. However, evidence suggests that economic incentives drive important daily "biases" in wind planning that we commonly observe in electricity markets (for example, in California, New England or Spain).Third, the PI will develop teaching materials to provide both master and PhD students with the necessary tools to model and understand electricity markets. Electricity is a key input to the production of goods and services. However, students are oftentimes overwhelmed by the complexity of how electricity markets are organized. These classes and materials will encourage future work in this area, which is expected to become even more relevant as we search for economic solutions to the energy challenge.

电力市场的实证研究：可再生能源的影响预计到2018年，可再生能源将上升到全球总发电量的25%，陆上风力发电将大幅增加（IEA, 2013）。非水电可再生能源（主要是风能和太阳能）的份额预计将从2011年的4%和2006年的2%增加到2018年的8%。可再生能源快速增长的原因之一是用于推广清洁技术的公共资金越来越多。在美国，联邦政府和许多州都通过了几项可再生能源政策来促进可再生能源的发展。最近的经济研究认为，风能和太阳能带来了新的挑战（Joskow 2011; Borenstein 2012; Baker et al., 2013）。首先，可再生能源是“间歇性的”；它以不稳定和不可控制的方式供电。例如，风速、风向、云量等天气特征，都会影响风能和太阳能发电。因此，可再生能源通常不能为电网系统提供稳定和连续的电力。其次，很难提前准确预测可再生能源的产量，这带来了很大的不确定性。在电力市场上，生产的不确定性尤其成问题，因为电力不是一种容易储存的商品，因此系统操作员需要确保在任何给定时间内供需平衡。随着可再生能源份额的增长，间歇性和不确定性正成为监管机构和市场参与者关注的问题。该研究项目将开发新的理论和实证策略来评估可再生能源的影响。目标是通过分析风能和太阳能整合方面的最新相关经验，实证地量化可再生能源的影响。考虑到这项工作的实际意义，首席研究员将开发开放访问程序，使其他研究人员能够使用这些数据。该项目由三部分组成。首先，PI将构建一系列新的数据集，并使用应用微观经济学的方法来理清可再生能源对电力成本的影响。这将允许在可再生能源普及率非常高的情况下衡量可再生能源的事后效益和成本。这些测量可以作为模拟研究的重要补充，而模拟研究通常是事前进行的。例如，这项研究可以帮助确定模拟模型在哪些方面有效，以及在哪些方面可以改进。其次，PI将把这些数据纳入一系列研究项目，以测试和评估电力市场在整合可再生能源方面的表现。特别是，PI建议制定一个理论和经验框架，使我们能够了解如何更好地将可再生能源纳入市场环境。这些框架将依赖于博弈论的竞争模型，并将有助于在实证产业组织的文献。该项目将强调可再生能源生产商与市场中已存在的扭曲，如市场力量或信息外部性的相互作用。这些影响在文献中通常被忽视，这些文献通常基于集中计划模型。然而，有证据表明，经济激励导致了我们在电力市场（例如，在加利福尼亚、新英格兰或西班牙）普遍观察到的风能规划中重要的日常“偏差”。第三，项目将开发教材，为硕士生和博士生提供必要的工具来模拟和理解电力市场。电力是商品和服务生产的关键投入。然而，学生们经常被电力市场如何组织的复杂性所淹没。这些课程和材料将鼓励未来在这一领域的工作，随着我们寻找能源挑战的经济解决方案，这一领域将变得更加相关。